


The Disappearing Forest

by Secret_Ignis



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 18:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Ignis/pseuds/Secret_Ignis
Summary: This is an original story I wrote last year, but I love it so much that I wanted to share it here.





	The Disappearing Forest

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original story I wrote last year, but I love it so much that I wanted to share it here.

**Nat**  
Nat studied the valley below her with great interest. What was typically glaring, hot sand was a lush, cool forest, dark green and stretching on for miles. Completing the habitat were many animals native to a typical forest - not to a typical desert, as was the city of Wellgold’s natural biome.  
However, today that had been changed. Earlier that morning, a great rumbling had woken up the city. The Guards had been sent out to find the source of the rumbling, so here Nat was. Peering over the tall fence of the city, squinting through her scope at the new vegetation that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.  
“Natalia, come on! We have to go to the WP!” Garrett, her Guard Supervisor, called out.   
“Ugh, fine! I just really think there’s something here, something that we shouldn’t just blow up out of fear,” she responded, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.  
Garrett stormed up to her, grabbed her collar, and slammed her into the fence. Her eyes widened in fear. He knocked away her scope with a quick swipe of a hand.  
“Now you listen here,” he growled, “I’m nowhere near scared. This ‘ere forest is just not supposed to be here. So we’re gonna make it not here. Understand?”   
“Yeah, sure,” replied Nat. “... and it’s Nat,” she mumbled under her breath.  
Reluctantly, she took a few steps to follow Garrett. However, as he was much taller than her and much faster, he was soon was out of sight. Nat hung back and surveyed the fence and its height.  
If I jump onto that trash can, and then cling to the wire from there… Nat thought to herself.   
In a few minutes, and a very loud clatter, Nat made it to the other side of the fence. Outside the fence was one of the few zones that Guards were not allowed to be in. But Nat didn’t have much respect for the rules, so here she was anyway.  
She ran up to the first tree she saw and ran her hand down its bark. Coarse, dry, but also sticky from sap. Just like she’d read about in her storybooks.   
She heard birds crying and jogged to follow the sound. Her feet crushed soft ferns and crunchy leaves. She passed tree after tree, and soon they all looked the same. Before she knew it, she was lost among them.   
Stupid. Why didn’t you bring your communicator? She scolded herself. But she knew why. Communicators had built-in tracking tech, so she would have been followed the moment she stepped (or, really, jumped) outside the fence by the Explorators.  
Wandering through the undergrowth, Nat noticed that it was getting significantly darker. Now the only source of light came from the searchlights of the city. Then even that faded to black, and Nat was left in total darkness.

**ROCK**  
The walk to the forest was long and dark. Of course, everything else in the city was dark, too, after the Lords took over the government. Only the set of 2945’s had their own personal light source. The special ones. Rock had always been jealous of them.   
There wasn’t much to look at, so Rock hummed the music that he had been practicing earlier in class. Music, he found, had always made the journey to the forest an easier one.  
Before he knew it, he was at his destination. The strange, bent tree with the flowing symbols etched into it. He placed his hand in the middle of one of the symbols and concentrated his energy.  
A line of green-blue light began to shine in a ring around his hand. The ring grew until the light was just bright enough to cover his body, but didn’t reflect onto everything else. The tree’s bark melted away into the light, and soon, so did Rock.  
He had been doing this kind of mission for a few years now. First, he would test each WorldPortal (strangely named, since they were for going to other universes, not worlds), then he would travel through and check on every universe he came across. Watching silently had always been his strong point. He was a very quiet person.  
The light faded around him, and he appeared, nearly transparent, in this new world. Affectionately named #WV973890, this universe was found just last week - quite new in the eyes of #UH973845, his home universe.   
This universe looked extremely similar to his - which was common. Universes usually looked similar, unless something dramatic happened, like that one where the Yuoinkins really had launched the Ever-Ending bomb, or the Earthians had figured out how to travel far enough to destroy all galaxies, including their own.   
#WV973890 looked like a near-match, however. The only thing that he could see that was different was the fact that everything was bright. Bright white light! Rock had almost forgotten what light looked like. The main source of the light was coming from a large spotlight spying over a humongous steel fence, maybe fifty feet tall.   
Rock checked his meter. Oxygen checks out… he thought to himself. In fact, there’s a significant oxygen spike in this area in the past hour or so. Strange… however, there are significant forms of life, including humans. He spun around a few times, walked for a bit, checked color samples of vegetation against his GuideBook, and finally checked the time.   
I’ve got a bit of time until I have to go back home… time for a bit of recreation! He took out his SelfTrack so he wouldn’t get lost, and began wandering around the forest, attempting to head towards the fence.   
Suddenly, a small human girl crashed out of the bush next to him. She was chubby, dressed in some kind of uniform. Her curly hair was bobbing just above her shoulders, filled with leaves and twigs. What really drew Rock’s attention, however, was the large weapon strapped in a holster to her belt.   
“Woah… are you an alien?”  
“Uh, I… I -” Rock stammered. He wasn’t used to conversing, not through words at least, and he also wasn’t sure how to respond to her question. To her, he’d technically be an alien, but simultaneously not, since he was from a different universe, but pretty much the same planet.   
He glanced down, and realized that she must have known he wasn’t from her home not from his travel history, but from his clothing. Rock was wearing a large dull-yellow clunky travel suit, built for taking the pressure of using the WorldPortal. He could see right through his helmet, but it was only one-way, and looked opaquely dark green from the outside.  
Also, he was currently semi-transparent.   
“N - not exactly,” he decided to respond. “I mean, I’m sort of, but…” he continued brilliantly.   
“Are you with the Guards?” the girl asked. “Because if you are, tell them I’m not going back without a fight, and I’m not leaving this forest even if they do blow it up.”  
“I - what?” Rock stammered. He wasn’t sure if he heard the girl right, and her voice was muffled through his helmet. He reached up, and the girl pulled her weapon.   
“Wait! Don’t shoot. Let me just take off my helmet. Look,” he held out his hands, patted down his sides. “No weapons, right? Let me just take off my helmet, and we can talk.”  
“Fine,” the girl replied, lowering her weapon but not holstering it.   
Rock reached up and pulled off his helmet. The girl gasped.

**Nat**  
The alien pulled off his helmet. Nat gasped. He looked like one of the Royals, with their perfect golden hair, sparkling green eyes, and slender… well, she assumed body. She could only see the alien’s face. Then again, she’d never seen any of the Royal’s bodies either, since they always wore the long, flowing cloaks to cover most of themselves.   
The alien - or maybe he was not an alien after all - bored into her eyes with his own. He appeared to be sure of himself and strong, but Nat could tell that he was truly nervous. Although he had originally been practically glaring at her, he was now glancing around, his eyes wide and pupils tiny.   
“Better?” The boy - for that’s what he truly was - asked Nat.   
“Better... “ replied Nat, nearly wordless. “But…”   
“But what?” asked the boy.  
She found her voice suddenly. “Are you a Royal? Why are you here? Did you come to blow up the forest? Wh -”  
“Woah, slow down. I don’t even know what a Royal is,” the boy replied. “Let’s start over. My name is Rock. I came from that tree,” he pointed. “I’m certainly not here to blow up the forest. Why would I be?”  
Nat frowned. “You look like one of the people that control this city,” she said. “They all look pretty, like you. As for blowing up the forest, my comrades were just heading to the WP -”   
“Wait, you have WorldPortals too?” Rock interrupted.   
“What? No. WP. Weapons-Pod. It’s where we keep the things that go boom,” Nat replied. “What’s a WorldPortal?”  
“It’s a…. Never mind,” Rock replied, glancing at his SelfTrack with the time on it. “I have to go. You should keep standing up for the trees. Even though they won’t be here for that much longer.”   
“Wait, what do you mean?” Nat called, but Rock was already heading for the tree and fading fast. “Are you really going to blow it up?”  
But he was already gone.  
Abruptly, the rumbling from that morning started again. The noise reverberated all around Nat, so loudly roaring that it brought her to her knees, forcing her to clamp her eyes shut.   
And just as suddenly, it stopped.  
When she opened her eyes, the desert had returned. The trees had gone. She began to make her way back to the fence, then stopped.   
The light had returned.  
She turned and faced the rest of the desert. The sand stretched on for miles and miles. She glanced back at the city, at her city, and all of its fences and spotlights.  
I want to go see the trees again, she decided.  
She began walking across the sand.

**Author's Note:**

> If you can't tell, I love writing cliffhangers.


End file.
